Iran is directing a team of scientists and weapons engineers to explore a faster way to convert the country's stockpile of highly enriched uranium into a workable nuclear weapon, according to U.S. intelligence. This approach would rely on an older-style nuclear weapon design that could not be miniaturized to fit on a ballistic missile, rather than the more sophisticated design Iran received from Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan. This shortcut approach might cut the development timeline for a weapon down to a few months from the current U.S. and Israeli estimates of between one to two years.